About Me

Kathy is a tennis pro and freelance editor/writer who writes instructional tennis articles for various print and electronic publications. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin with a major in biology and a minor in English, she also graduated second in her class at the United States Tennis Academy and taught high school science for 16 years.

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About the malignant narcissism of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). Explains why narcissists behave the way they do - viewing others as prey to treat like dirt or tear down in order to prop up their delusions of superiority. Share your insights and everyday examples of narcissistic behavior.

OperationDoubles.com

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

The Betrayal of the Bystanders

Why do we feel so wronged by the people who believe a narcissist's lies about us? There are a number of reasons, but here is one of the biggest.

It's because their credulity isn't innocent. If a stranger believes some outrageous lie about us, we aren't surprised, and we don't feel wronged by them. But if someone who knows us believes that same lie, we feel betrayed. Guess why? It's because they have betrayed us by believing that lie about us.

For example, if someone has known you for ten years, they see your track record of conduct for the last ten years. In other words, they have seen how you conduct yourself along this way of life we're bound upon.

No, they don't see everything you've said and done. But they have seen a lot. They have seen you react to many various stimuli.

That track record of yours sketches your character in their eyes. This representation of what kind of person you are is based on your CONDUCT (your words and deeds), not on mere hearsay about you.

So no one should be able to come along and tell them JUST ANYTHING about you.

For example, if you are a gentle person, in ten years that will show. Many times. The people you interact with daily will see sample after sample of you reacting gently to things that most others would react more harshly to.

So no narcissist should be able to come along and insinuate that you are violent.

Likewise if you are honest. In ten years that will show. Many times. The people you interact with daily will see sample after sample of you reacting honestly to things that most others would hedge the truth about.

So no narcissist should be able to come along and insinuate that you are a liar.

Likewise if you are sensible. In ten years that will show. Many times. The people you interact with daily will see sample after sample of you reacting sensibly to things that most others would show poor judgment about.

So no narcissist should be able to come along and insinuate that you are crazy and imagining things.

To believe these things about you they have to unknow everything they know about you. That is, they have to unknow you. They have to revise history. They have to erase that track record of yours.

And that track record is your life. They have to wipe it out.

That takes your life.

Which is why they call it "character assassination."

Your whole life goes up in smoke. And a figment of the imagination is substituted for it.

Those people are not innocent. Indeed, check it out: that is the Original Sin.

Eve committed it when she chose to believe that God was the liar, not the slithering sidewinder who snuck up to her and said, "Really? God told you that? That you would fall if you swallowed this stuff?"

Then Adam committed it worse when he swallowed it, too, just to agree with Eve.

The serpent did the same thing to God that the narcissist does to his victims, whom he slanders to discredit. Adam and Eve did the same thing to God that people do to a narcissist's victim when they believe the lie.

The narcissit's lie is always ironic. For the narcissist is out to smear one of your outstanding GOOD QUALITIES with the semblance of one of his own VICES. So, the allegation is always preposterous. No one who knows you should be fooled by it.

Because it isn't believable. They should know better. But they willfully don't. Because the lie is juicy.

And so, there's nothing like a narc attack to show you who your real friends are.

6 Comments:

Apart from people enjoying juicy gossip, as you say, I can think of two other possible reasons why so-called friends are willing to believe the worst of the person being slandered.

Firstly, we tend to judge other people by our own standards. So, if you have been wrongly accused of something you wouldn't dream of doing, but your friends believe the lie, it just might mean that they themselves have done the same sort of thing, or at least know they would be capable of it, given the opportunity. We think other people share our principles. But there are an awful lot of people with very few principles at all. For example, here in England some people have their kids baptized into the Roman Catholic church just to get them into a 'good' school. They see nothing wrong in this at all.

The other possibility is that 'friends' who believe lies that are told about us don't know us at all because they've never bothered to find out what we are really like anyway. They have a fictional image of who we are in their head.

This is a definite narcissistic trait, I know, but it is surprising how many people have it.

For example, some while back I was telling a woman that my husband and I had been to a rock concert with our 15-year-old son. She sneered at me in disbelief and declared: "You don't like rock music." Not, "Oh, I'm surprised. I didn't know you liked rock music."

I've just remembered - this is what they call invalidation, isn't it?

So, if people are happy to just make other people up, anyway, I'm sure it's very easy to believe any old BS that's spouted about them.

The narcissit's lie is always ironic. For the narcissist is out to smear one of your outstanding GOOD QUALITIES with the semblance of one of his own VICES.

Psychologists call that projection. Which was something I back engineered after observing the behavior of the Left concerning Bush. Charges of unilateralism for example. Charges of ignoring your allies at Bush. (at about the same time they threaten Maliki and call Karzai a puppet)

Sometimes, people will start giving you the cold shoulder and you don't even know what it's about.A man moved into our street a few years ago and ruined normal neighbourly relationships between a lot of people. Although he has gone now, my next-door neighbour still blanks me.

Yamarsakr, I have noticed the same thing among politicians/propagandists. They protect themselves from censure for what they do by just pre-emptively accusing their rivals of doing it.

Once you catch on to this, you are amazed at how often that's what's behind political accusations at both the national and world level. Whatever Group X is in the very act of doing, they accuse their rivals of doing. The result is a joke.

I am convinced that this is a calculated trick as a pre-emptive strike that keeps the other side from pointing the finger at what THEY are doing. For how can you accuse the other side of insulting our allies when you yourself have just been accused by them of that? It sounds insincere. People always believe the first accuser.

I knew a couple narcissists who ruled a small community that used to call this trick "blocking the kick."

They shouldn't get away with it. If people would just stop and think, reviewing the facts before swallowing crap whole, if they would care to know the truth instead just whatever they would LIKE to believe, this wouldn't happen.

The result is a farce, as when the nations insuring that negotiations fail and that war must therefore occur, - they come out mselling like a rose as the "peace camp."

Narcissists just do the same thing on a smaller scale, capitaizing on people's willingness to believe lies.

Thank you for this post. I'd like to send it to every one of my former friends who believed the Narcissist's lies about me, except they've blocked me out of their lives. I can't wait for the Narcissists in my family to just die, then I will be safe.

Links to this post:

This website and blog share my observations and understanding of malignant narcissism. Being a writer, I feel that I should use my ability to describe and explain things in a way that is clear and meaningful to the average person. So, here you find many examples of narcissistic behaviors and learn why your normal behavior yields anti- results from people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), why they are predators compelled to abuse and slander vulnerable prey, and why they react so backwardly to things. My aim is to contribute what I can to the formal understanding of NPD and to help those victimized by a narcissist understand what is going on. I am no expert. These are just the observations and reasoning of one who has had long experience with narcissists and knows others with such experience. So, I can't give you counseling or personal advice. I have no credentials. This publication isn't intended as professional advice of any sort.